Freelance writer - working from home with a baby - advice/experiences please.

[Wordweaver]

I am pregnant and trying to figure out what I am going to do when the baby arrives in terms of a) how long to take maternity leave (allowance) for, and b) my options for when I start working again.

I would really appreciate hearing your experiences / advice.

Initially (starting about four weeks after the baby comes) I am going to try to use the 10 KIT days to get some income, and my mum is going to look after the baby at those times.

Unfortunately it isn't an option to have the full amount of maternity time allowed - I have to start earning again. However, I am lucky in that the kind of writing I do means I might be able to do a few hours here and there in the week and still manage financially.

I know this is all dependent on the baby and how good or otherwise it is at napping etc. I have read through all the relevant threads in this topic and the overall consensus seems to be that you need childcare. But a few people have mentioned that they invested time early on to train the baby to nap for a good couple of hours in the morning, for example, so that when they did start back to work, they could get a lot done then.

So how do you 'train' a baby to nap? Sorry if this is a daft question, but it's all new to me!

I am aware that I can't make any hard and fast decisions about how all this is going to work. I just want to get my head around the options and possibilities. I REALLY don't want to be putting a very little baby into childcare - I would rather we sold the house and went and lived somewhere much smaller and cheaper so that we didn't need to have so much coming in. But the baby isn't due until March so I have a bit of time to think through some possibilities.

It's a little bit frustrating discussing this with friends, as they were/are all in employment and make horrified noises when I say that I might have to start doing bits of work here and there about four weeks after the baby comes. Most of them had the best part of a year off. Sounds lovely, but if I tried that we would be repossessed! It must be hard for those in employment to get their heads around the different issues you have as a freelancer.

The kind of writing work I do doesn't usually involve lengthy phone calls or set times of day. It's a possibility to work at weekends when DH is home. In lots of ways I can be very flexible, but it's just this BIG unknown world and I would like to hear how from others who have done it in terms of the practicalities.

Sorry this is so long!

I tried this when ds was born. In the very very early stages its ok - you can work with them nestled in a sling next to you. But after about 6 months it gets really, really tricky. Both mine napped quite well in the mornings (2-3 hours) but I found I just could not work with half an ear out listening for them. I also felt I was constantly ignirign the baby or trying to get him to sleep so I could work.

In the end, I found it easier to get more work and get childcare, then really focus on the children at other times .

I'm trying to work on a freelance basis now that DD is four months old. I do get a bit of writing work done throughout the day, this hasn't been a problem.

The problem is that nap times are very unpredictable. I have tried to get DD into a routine but she has really resisted. I am also supposed to spend some time on the phone and I have found this almost impossible and I have missed crucial interviews because I've been desperately trying to get DD to nap.

So, in short: writing is fine, phone calls not so much, especially as she has wanted to nap less and less throughout the day. Apparently when they hit five months they can start to sleep longer throughout the day which would be great!

Good luck with your pregnancy and with your work.

Hi Wordweaver
I went back to work after 4 weeks post-birth, writing from home as you plan to do, and I'd just say be prepared for things to be difficult at first. As oranges says, it's do-able in the early days when they're really tiny - I used to breastfeed while interviewing someone on the phone - but there are so many other adjustments to make, and you're generally exhausted etc. Now he's 7 months, I'd say its virtually impossible unless he's asleep. I feel too guilty to work when he's up and you really can't concentrate, so I'd suggest getting some childcare organised ( I have somebody come to my place one day a week and I just blitz loads of work on that one day to make it more worthwhile). I also used to work in the evenings once he'd gone to sleep and I could relax a bit more (although knackered obviously....) It all takes time to settle down though, so allow yourself time to get sorted.

I wouldn't bank on necessarily being able to 'train' your baby to nap - they are all different and there are no guarantees! You might get lucky with a good sleeper, you might not.

On the upside, you feel like a superwoman when you get a load of work done at home without having to travel anywhere, while you're in pyjamas, and the baby is sleeping peacefully!!

Good luck with it all

Thank you all for your replies - it's great to have a forum like this where I can connect with people like you. The main difficulty I have at the moment is that I want to be able to agree to take on certain jobs that I can do in a day or two, and of course the client needs to have some level of certainty that I will hit the deadline!

It is encouraging that it is possible to get a bit of work done in the first few months.

Devonlover, are you actually based in Devon? I am - would be nice to know other freelancers in the area!

Ha, no I'm not based there, I'm in E Sussex - but I grew up in Devon and would love to return!

I'm a freelance journalist working from home and I'd pretty much second what has been said. With DS, now 4, I went back to work when he was six months. He wasn't a good sleeper and I remember the hellishness of trying to have him sleeping at a time when I was due to make a phone call.

This time round, DD was born in February and I needed to go back to work pretty sharpish so I didn't lose a client. All in all I took six weeks off, but she was two weeks late so I was working when she was four weeks old. I work to two deadlines a week, each needing about six hours of writing work each. Slings (I was using a Kari-Me, great for holding close) were my lifesaver. She is a great sleeper (don't know if that's the large amount of time spent in a sling in the early weeks or just her character) and I had no trouble working with her asleep for up to six hours a day right up to four or five months old. The work I do I can largely do over email and online, but I did need to do quite a few phone interviews when she was a little older, but she slept through them and it was pretty invariably fine.

As she got older she slept less, and now she's at nursery three days a week, at 8mo, and I try not to work when she's at home because you do end up obsessing about their sleep and trying to fit it around your work patterns.

However, I do have the fallback that DH also works from home so he could always take her in an emergency...

I wasn't quite in your situation, but close-ish. I wanted to do some freelance writing while on maternity leave, plus work on my own creative writing.

My son has always been a poor napper, and to be honest I got nowhere trying to write in the day. If I had another child I would try using one of the soft fabric slings though and seeing if I could do something with them.

Once my son had a regularish bedtime it became a bit easier (although we certainly didn't have this as early as four weeks), and I would count on 8pm plus being 'available' for writing time, even though it was often interrupted. However I did tend to find that my son was often ill and needed lots of settling when I most needed to write! Then I counted on my husband to be on baby duty a little bit more than his fair share.

I am back at work now, but still have a lot of take-home work, freelance and creative stuff to go. Most evenings are okay - I've given up on doing much more than emails in the day time with my son around. At the weekend, when we're doing the weekly shop I now sit in the supermarket cafe with my laptop while my husband wanders around - I find I can do quite a lot in the 40mins-an hour that they shop for!

Just to add that DD would sleep for 40 minutes in her Moses basket and for up to 3 hours in a sling... Still does sometimes...

I'm an editor with a 9mo dd. I can only work when she's in bed at night or on weekends...

Thanks again to everyone. Tantietowie, thanks for telling me about the Kari-Me sling - it sounds as if that might be a good thing to try. Although I am looking at mumsnet working on the sofa by the fire with my legs up at the moment with suspected pgp. Thank goodness I can work like this!

I worked with a 6mo DD - also editor. Was awful - I was exhausted, was working nights and weekend to try and keep up with commitments, extremely stressful, nightmare actually. We all had a horrible time. I am not going to do it again.

Got DD into a couple of hours a week with a wonderful childminder and only then started working again.

Sorry, but this is the honest truth about my experience. I really would not recommend that you commit to too much work in the early days.

I agree with lucky - am on my last project and then nothing until DD starts nursery for a couple of mornings a week. I accepted some work while still pregnant, because of course, the baby would just sleep at my feet all day .

Well, I will just have to hope for a compliant baby I guess! And work like stink up to its arrival . . .

It is certainly do-able, but may be tricky with your first baby. My first left me feeling pretty shell-shocked and I needed nap times to recover! Now I look back and think eek, all that wasted time.

With my second baby, I resumed my work as a freelance writer when he was six weeks old, starting with a few hours here and there and building up to a reasonable chunk of time each week (ave four hours per day). In his first year I managed to bill £30k without putting him into nursery at all (DS1 was in nursery for two days per week). My trick was at first using a sling so he could sleep on me as I worked at the computer, and then using Gina Ford timings for naps, to get them into a routine of sleeping for a guaranteed two hours every lunch time, and going to bed at 7pm on the dot every night. I was still getting up in the night a LOT as I was not doing feeding by routine, but naps were the main thing. My nap 'training' didn't involve leaving him to cry or anything, just making sure I woke him at 7am each day, and putting him down to sleep at the suggested times until he automatically wanted to sleep at those times (and we used a dummy, so I didn't spend too much working time actually getting him to sleep).

hth, but don't be hard on yourself about jumping back into work if it is your first as there are massive changes to get used to emotionally and practically, and it is worth eating into savings a little to get past the first tricky months imo

I certainly invested some time in the month or so before going back to freelance work when DD2 was 4 months in "training" her to have longer naps. Babies have a tendency to stir and wake after 45 minutes, but I used to resettle her and gradually she started going from several 45 min naps to a longer 2 hour nap from 10ish until 12ish which co-incided with when DD1 was at nursery and I could guarantee I'd be able to get some work done. She went to a childminder at 6 months, but I wasn't ready to send her at 4 months.

Thanks Bramshott and porcupine1 - it really helps to hear how you actually did it! I think the sling sounds as if it is worth a try, as well as the routine times for naps. Hopefully in conjunction with help from my mum at least at first, and maybe working on Saturdays when DH is here, it will be manageable at first.

The other major events of this year (wedding and moving house) mean we have bugger all in the way of savings to eat into!

could you look into the costs of a mother's help to come to your house to look after the baby? That way you would still be with your baby, and able to breastfeed during those hours but would know that e.g. from 1-4 each day there is someone to entertain her to allow you to get on with your work.

I've got two freelancer friends who do this together - they share the cost of a mother's help (she's actually a granny whos own grandkids live far away) and one friend goes to the other's house every afternoon for 3 hours work.

I've agreed to try that out a few times with my mum, and we'll see how it goes . . . if it works out it could be the best solution. Interesting idea about sharing it with another freelancer - not sure that there is anyone else locally doing this, though. It's very much a commuter town!

Hi wordweaver, I'm an old hand at all this now (I'm a freelance writer and have 4 children) - are you still after advice/support? Might be able to help...!

Hi PermShattered, yes, all advice welcome! Nine weeks to go . . .

Exciting! My youngest will be one on 19 March! My main pieces of advice are: - don't be too hard on yourself in the early days and remember that each baby is different. It's already been said, but as this is your first you will probably be shellshocked to begin with anyway. Your life will never be the same again - but it will be better! You'll need to get yourself and the baby into a routine before you should try to tackle work.

It can be quick and easy though. I've been freelance for 12 years now since my youngest was about 4 months old. I now have 4 children, the youngest nearly 1. The eldest three slept well in the day but this last one has been a bit different :( He does still nap in the day but it's on average about half an hour in the morning, 1-2 hours after lunch although he can do longer. So I do get little done during the day. I have to wait til the evening and weekends to do more writing..... He will start private nursery for 2 mornings a week from 18 months but until then it's just juggling really.

In terms of training the baby - take comfort from the fact that the majority of babies naturally need a nap from about 9ish then lunchtime. Few seems to deviate from that.

Are you a naturally organised person? I have also learnt that I need to plan things with military precision: what can I do when the baby sleeps and what can I leave until he wakes? Ie. When he's awake I could deal with the odd email, prepare the veg for dinner while he's in the bouncer, etc, but I'd write my articles while he sleeps. And working under the pressure of knowing I have to put ALL my mental energies into that work while he's asleep makes me very productive. I'm exceptionally focused.

Does that help?!

Oh, one more thing: this last time around (perhaps I'm just old! -41) I planned on restarting freelance about 3-4 weeks after the birth but in reality it was about 6 months, bar one day a month - but that's because he's been a terrible sleeper at night and I was like a zombie - and coping with three other children too.....

Thank you for your post - it is really useful to hear how you managed it I am fairly organised but I think I need to get more so! I am going to try to get us into a routine that works for us over the first few weeks, and then see what is possible work-wise.

Only eight weeks to go now! I am baffled as to where the last 32 have gone . . .

Thank you again for your help and advice - it really is greatly appreciated.

Hi Wordweaver, I also posted when I was pregnant to get similar advice. I have a small Internet-based business, so slightly different scenario to your freelancing. I spent a lot of my pregnancy planning for keeping things going with the business and I do feel like I've been pretty successful so far. DD is 4 months old.

The things that I found really invaluable have been:

• hiring a PT assistant - to whom I've delegated the day-to-day customer stuff. This means my work is far less time-sensitive.

• creating a separate office space (this was totally necessary for me!) so phone not ringing all the time. Not conducive to napping babies!

• getting a sling. THOROUGHLY recommend the Moby wrap. I can pop DD in for hours at a stretch. I basically potter around tidying up etc. When she falls asleep, I switch on the laptop and off I go!

• iPad...... Technology is your friend. I work as I bf DD, replying to ad hoc emails, planning things, writing short blog posts, etc. Also, I use an app to synchronise my to-do list across laptop, smart phone and iPad. Then, when I have a couple of hours in a chunk, I blitz through the list rather than 'wasting' time planning/prioritising.

• support from DH/grans. I'm lucky to have my mum living so close and she minds DD twice a week for a few hrs in my house. DH also does his bit, if possible, but he works long hours so it's only a few hours a week. But, I don't tend to do loads of work in the evening for a host of reasons - cluster feeding, colic, and just generally DD being unsettled. And, I hadn't really counted on DD being so attached to me either. She doesn't like being left very much really (which is where the sling comes in handy).

• cosleeping. The first few weeks were tough with DD refusing to settle. Since I started cosleeping, I have felt human with pretty much normal brainpower again.

• reducing expectations!

Good luck with it all.... Nothing like being busy and having small chunks of time to focus the mind and ensure max productivity! But, do enjoy this golden babyhood time as the time just flies.